Posts Tagged ‘Can’t Be Tamed’

I’m frustrated. At work this semester, we started playing the radio on loudspeakers so that the entire Park Student Union could hear the music. Usually, it was a hip-hop/hits station. So naturally, Rhianna, J-Biebz, and Miley Cyrus came on a lot. The song that repulsed me in particular was “Rude Boy” by Rhianna.

I go back to the lyrics and I just watched the video and honestly, I’m just saddened. This blog isn’t some kind of challenge to stop listening to this music. It’s pointed at the entertainment market today. Watch this video and listen closely to the lyrics:

First of all, to me, the song is all about Rhianna thinking she deserves the quality of sex that she’s asking for. It’s honestly egotistical for her to think that because she is who she is, that she deserves the type of satisfaction she’s asking for from this Rude Boy. Secondly, what kind of message is this sending? It’s sad that it is acceptable for Rhianna to teach her listeners promiscuity. Society today becomes more and more tolerant of casual and open sexuality. Sex becomes a less and less special thing. Rhianna is reducing it to a carnal act in her song, there’s nothing beautiful about it. Lastly, I am tearing up just writing this, but the most repeated line in this song is “love me love me love me” and even at the end of the music video, she crouches there, with the word love behind her. Love is beautiful. To make love is supposed to be beautiful. But she invited us in on something sweaty, desperate, and rude. I’m not saying Rhianna does not know that this is everything that she’s doing. I don’t know though, that she’s aware of the fact that she’s desperate for love and healing. She demands someone to love her throughout the song. I achingly see it as a plea.

Then there’s Miley. Hannah Montana, loved by millions of little girls all over. She doesn’t want to be Hannah Montana anymore, nor does she wish to be the role model of 12 and unders all over the world. When she had her pole dance scare at a recent awards show and then denied it, she went back on her word in this video:

Miley is trying to do something new and different. She wants the fans that Lady Gaga and Britney Spears have, so she’s being a copycat. I honestly think she had a good thing going in “The Climb” genre of her singing, but that only applies to her teeny bopper fans apparently. She says in this song that she’s not a fake, but I don’t think she is being true to herself. I think she’s being true to her desires (which are pretty selfish). The first lines of the song are the worst because as a girl in a relationship, she talks about going through guys like flying money. She has the Rhianna ego to match. But the winner of the saddest line is, “I can’t be saved.” Maybe she’s speaking in terms of being saved like a damsel in distress gets saved, but I just see a huge wall around her heart.

I’m sitting here, trying not to cry (I’m writing from a coffee shop). Not only is the entertainment market pumping out junk today that majorly consists of sexual promiscuity, but they encourage instant gratification, selfish behavior, and huge egos. People like Rhianna and Miley get to be the voice of these lies, that fame or sex will set a person free. How enslaving that must be for them to believe those lies! I recently read that Jennifer Aniston fears aging. That she believes her value as a human goes down as the years go by.

I ache for Hollywood. I ache for people who don’t know Jesus. Because then they’d know that they can really be free. They would experience real love that satisfies to no end. They would know that their value lies in Christ alone, and no one (including themselves) can tell them who they are or devalue them. I long for these influential people to know real life. These are people who have it all but seem to be crying out. And I ache for them.